European Floods Directive - 1st Cycle

Protecting the community from the risk and impact of flooding is at the heart of EU Directive 2007/60/EC on the Assessment and Management of Flood Risks or ‘Floods Directive’. This Directive, introduced in October 2007, provided a new approach to managing flood risk on a catchment-wide scale. In November 2009, the Directive was transposed to Northern Ireland law through The Water Environment (Floods Directive) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2009.The Directive Timeline is geared to a rolling cycle so its 3 key stages must be repeated every 6 years to ensure that flood risk is managed effectively and that it takes account of new information and changes in risk.